World News - U.S. and Cuba Theatrical Shouting Match Rages Four-Block Area in Havana Is Ground Zero for Venting Pent-Up Hostilities

A four-block area around the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana has become ground zero for the two countries to vent pent-up hostility and grievances. The theatrical shouting match is pushing always contentious relations toward the breaking point. A crimson ticker runs through 25 windows on the fifth floor of the six-story building. The 5-foot-high ticker streams news, political statements, and messages blaming everyday problems such as transportation shortages on the country's communist politics and socialist economy. "Some go around in Mercedes, some in Ladas [a Russian car], but the system forces almost everyone to hitch rides," stated one message, playing on a common complaint that there are few buses and that Cubans need the government's permission to buy a new car. ''When people lose their fear totalitarian regimes lose power," another message stated. The United States insists it is merely promoting democracy and human rights. ... http://abcnews.go.com

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf stood by his alliance with the United States in the war on terrorism Monday and criticized Pakistanis for harboring al-Qaida in an area hit by a U.S. missile strike. He also urged President Bush, who is due to visit the subcontinent next month, to help nuclear rivals India and Pakistan settle their dispute over the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, cause of two wars between them. "This can be resolved now, and the United States must contribute," the Pakistani military leader told visiting journalists from Asia and the U.S., including a reporter from The Associated Press. "President Bush is coming here. I hope he understands the reality." ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1613136

Top world cocoa producer Ivory Coast on Monday rejected charges by rights groups that child slaves help produce its cocoa and said Valentine's Day consumers could eat Ivorian chocolate with a clear conscience. The West African nation, racked by conflict and unrest since a brief 2002 civil war, has come under increasing scrutiny from human rights and consumer groups who are campaigning for boycotts of foodstuffs tainted by violence, abuse or dangerous chemicals.The Washington-based International Labor Rights Fund last week pressed its case in a U.S. court against international food companies it says share responsibility in the trafficking, torture and forced labor of children who cultivate and harvest cocoa in Ivory Coast....http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060213/ts_nm/ivorycoast_chocolate_dc

The Bush administration's plan to recycle spent nuclear fuel could thwart recruitment efforts by terrorist groups in poor countries by providing impoverished nations with affordable electricity supplies that would improve their economies and the lives of their citizens, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said on Monday. The administration has asked Congress for $250 million in the Energy Department's 2007 budget to develop technology for reprocessing the thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel stored at U.S. nuclear power plants, which could be supplied to countries as fuel for their new power reactors that would generate electricity. Bodman said the administration's nuclear recycling plan could particularly help underdeveloped nations, which have "frequently served as safe havens for terrorists and other fanatics," such as the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden's initial home base in Sudan. ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1613146

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally wounded a hunting partner while shooting at a quail yesterday in Texas, Cheney's spokeswoman said. Cheney turned to shoot a quail that had just been flushed and accidentally hit Austin lawyer Harry Whittington with shotgun pellets, Lea Anne McBride, the vice president's spokeswoman, said in Washington. They were hunting at the Armstrong ranch in south Texas. Whittington, 78, was shot about 5:30 p.m. yesterday and was tended to by Cheney's Secret Service agents before paramedics arrived. He was taken to Christus Spohn Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, by ambulance. ``The vice president visited with Mr. Whittington this afternoon,'' McBride said. Whittington is ``listed in stable condition at this time,'' said Yvonne Wheeler, a spokeswoman for the hospital. ...http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=ad3uftx74s9o&refer=home

They call it Goldmine Sachs. And well they might. Because the Wall Street giant has become the first major investment bank to see its average salary top half a million dollars. The extraordinary figure is disclosed in the company's latest regulatory filings and comes as a record bonus season draws to a close on both sides of the Atlantic.It is sure to be used to entice people to join the bank, which expects to boost its number of employees by up to 10 per cent in anticipation of another bumper year for trading and mergers and acquisitions activity.Last year, Goldman Sachs paid out $11.7bn (£6.7bn) to its 22,425 employees - around 3,000 of whom are in London.Hank Paulson, the chairman and chief executive, was paid $38m in salary, shares and options - a 21 per cent increase on 2004. An average figure per staff member of $521,000 bursts through a barrier not even breached during the dot-com boom in 1999 and 2000....http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article344842.ece